


Threat Level: Teacup (Michael Clifford)

by orphan_account



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-19 16:10:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7368475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perfect house, perfectly family, perfect Australian city life. Perfect. Boring. A locker door to the face may just be able to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1- Threat Level: High School

The first day back after the summer holidays was always the most hectic. Even though I'd literally seen her two days’ prior, my best friend (Amber) always insisted on jumping on me, squealing as if she hadn't seen me since December. Today was no different.

 

Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t very big, so Amber’s gangly frame knocked me into a wall without great difficulty, her wiry arms clinging to my shoulders as if they’d disappear if she let go. “I’ve got so much to tell you!”

“It’s only been two days,” I groaned, prising my best friend’s fingers from my back. Despite being unhealthily slim, in a strangely athletic sort of way, Amber was a lot stronger than she looked, whereas I was about as pathetic as you’d expect a 5 foot fifteen-year-old girl to be. “A lot can happen in two days!” Amber screeched, holding me at arm’s length but still allowing her literal talons to dig into my shoulders; I’d have little claw marks there until the end of the day, at this rate. “Like what? It’s not like anything interesting ever happens here.” Despite being a pretty large city, often mistaken for Australia’s capital, Sydney was actually the most boring place I’d ever been. I always complained about visiting my aunts in Alice Springs, dubbing that the most boring place in Australia, but that was only because Amber and Jackson weren’t there – Sydney had it beat by thirty-seven and a half kilometres in a rank of boringness. “That’s completely false,” Amber complained, altering the length of the straps on her backpack. I never understood how she could carry that thing around with her all day, especially with both straps secured over her shoulders (wasn’t it a well-known fact that only losers used both of the straps?). I’d always found massive discomfort in backpacks, so stuck with my little leather satchels, despite their fashion clash with my entire wardrobe. My closet was at war.

 

“ _He_ ’s back,” Amber sighed, softly laying her head on the metal surface of the murky green locker next to mine. Since the very start of high school, I’d been exiled to the dreaded floor lockers, even though I knew for a fact the locker above mine had never even been claimed, so Amber and I had made a habit of sitting on the floor between classes. Three years of begging for a swap had gotten me absolutely nowhere. “Voldemort?” I dramatically gasped, satire dripping from my voice, rummaging through old work books that we were advised to keep but that I’d never look through again. Amber rolled her eyes, clearly a sign that it was far too early in the morning to make jokes about a series she’d never read or watched in her life. “Who’s back, A?”

“ _Clifford._ ”

“The big red dog?” I raised my eyebrows, rummaging around for a pen.

“ _Michael_ Clifford!”

“I don’t even know who that is,” I told her, watching her face drop and her eyes spark with fury. ‘ _What do you mean you don’t know who he is_?’ her eyes raged. Amber had a habit, which bordered on creepiness, of knowing everything about everyone. She sighed, casting her eyes to her fingers as if she planned to reprimand me. “The one who got pulled out last year because he kept getting into trouble. He was nearly expelled!” She exclaimed, as if I should have known this already. “Rumour has it they had to take him back in here because he threatened to knife one of his teachers.”

“I highly doubt they’d take him back if he tried to knife one of his teacher,” I said, rolling my eyes and slamming my locker shut. When Amber didn’t respond, I assumed she was in a bad mood with me, so I clasped my bag shut and straightened my collar before standing, only to be met with the sharp coldness of a locker door.

 

Falling back down onto my knees had probably been the most embarrassing thing that had happened to me (right next to getting white acrylic paint all over my uniform in year 9 and getting laughed at until I left the room, crying – my dad had to bring me a clean skirt) since I’d started here. “I am so sorry,” An unfamiliar voice droned from above me. Why was Amber still so silent? “I hadn’t expected you to stand up so quick. Are you alright?” A boy I’d never seen before crouched beside me, offering his hand and a soft smile, full of remorse. What had just happened? My first thought was to check my skirt to make sure my underwear was still covered before realising that I had bigger problems than strangers getting a flash of yellow underwear; I had an unattractive bump forming on my head in front of a moderately attractive stranger. “I- yeah, I’m fine.” I said, sitting up too fast, trying to straighten my bruised legs, but only managing to kick the poor boy in the ankle, forcing him to topple over from his crouched position with a chuckle and a light thud. “I suppose I deserved that, didn’t I? I’m Michael.” For some reason, my puny human brain wasn’t capable of putting two and two together, so I simply smiled at his introduction and straightened my skirt against my legs. He seemed nice enough, in all honesty. “I’m Molly. Are you new?” It hadn’t occurred to me that we were having a chat on the floor of a high school hallway until Amber grabbed my arm, far too tightly for my liking, and yanking me to me feet. I felt like I’d stolen a biscuit from the jar dad always kept under the sink and I’d been caught. “We’d best get to registration.” Amber ground out, tersely. What was her problem?

 

“I can’t believe you told him your name!” Amber hissed, forcefully pushing me through the door of our English Literature classroom ahead of her. I was surprised her immaculately filed finger nails hadn’t drawn blood from my upper arm yet. “His locker is right above mine. He’d have gotten my name eventually.”

“You can’t be friends with him!”

“Since when did you get to dictate that?”

“Since Michael Clifford hit you in the face with his locker.”

 

Michael Clifford – _alleged criminal_ – had hit me in the face with his locker. The throbbing in my head and the constant whining from Amber would never let me forget it. In my defence, Michael was a common name; he could have been anyone! _Two new boys named Michael in one day?_ Unlikely. I groaned and took my place at the back of the classroom, tugging on my collar. Thankfully, our English teacher was uppity enough to give us designated seats and Amber’s was miles away from mine. There was an uneven number of kids so, with every new seating plan emerged a loner at the back of the classroom of paired desks; I was this term’s loner.

 

Until the impossible happened.

 

“Take a seat near the back with Molly.” The teacher smiled at the tall blond haired boy, gesturing to the only empty seat in the room. I rolled my eyes: total romance novel cliché. I could practically see the steam erupting from Amber’s ears as her cheeks turned red. Her neck must have been hurting from the angle she had to turn at to glare at me. It hadn’t been my fault the only spare seat in the room was at my desk. “Your friend doesn’t like me much,” Michael whispered with a small grin as he pulled out the chair next to mine. I rolled my eyes and removed my pencil case from my bag, trying not to look too intently at the boy next to me. His hair was insane; it was difficult not to stare at him. “It’s okay,” I told him- “she doesn’t like me much, either.”

 

Unfortunately, I found that to later be true. “We can’t hang out here anymore,” Amber huffed, purposely banging her head against the locker behind her, refusing to sit beside me as I exchange my English books for physics and pretended that my head wasn’t about to implode. “Where else do you want us to go? Jackson’s locker?” As much as I hated the positioning of my locker (even more so, now that it had landed me a purple bruise on my forehead, in perfect sight), Jackson deserved all of the sympathy I was capable of mustering. While convenient for some, Jackson had no use for a locker right next to the disabled toilets in the West Block; literally no one in the school used the disabled toilets, except horny soccer players and cheerleaders whose only aspiration was to get expelled for having a quicky on the sink. All the way across the other side of the school, we had no time to save Jackson until lunch, so we remained on the floor by my locker every single day. I had a feeling that that was about to change.

 

“Do you really expect me to stand here near… near a _criminal_?” Michael was standing literally right next to us at this point, a grimace folding over his eyebrows. There was no way he hadn’t heard Amber bitching. “Do you really expect Jackson to stand there near… near _quicky central_?” I gasped, in response. “Do you really expect me to stand near… near such a _judgemental bitch_?” I could have called her any number of things, including dense, but I thought ‘judgemental’ was best fitting. Poor Michael’s mouth twitched, positively, and his scrunched up features relaxed some. “ _Excuse me_?!”

“Rumour has it; Amber Avery believes everything she hears!” I stood, suddenly, wanting to leave. Jackson would agree with me, wouldn’t he? Had I overreacted? I groaned, once again falling to my knees and kicking my locker shut. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Michael said, smiling uncertainly, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not he was allowed to talk to me. I definitely wasn’t going to object after getting a quick glimpse of his eyes; an interesting green colour, flecked with panic, that shone grey in the right light. “I agree,” I groaned, rubbing my head. My brother was going to love this.


	2. 2- Threat Level: Kill Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thank you, if you've gotten this far. I know it's a bit slow paced, but I swear it'll pick up a little!!  
> Drop a comment so I know what's going on haha criticism is always welcome :)

**Molly**

“Threat level?”

“High School,” I stated, ruffling my little brother’s hair. He’d noticed my bruise at the breakfast table the next morning as I’d made my attempts at avoiding my dad. Threat Levels were how we determined how bad an injury was and/or how we’d gotten it. It was our way of asking how the day went without ‘sounding like Auntie Nina’, as Ollie had so kindly put it when he made up the system. Ollie had come home one day with the insistence that his Threat Level was higher than mine, even though he’d come home with a bruise on his knee with a response of ‘Threat Level; Little Girl’. My Threat Level was much higher than ‘Little Girl’. “High School sounds terrifying.”

“It is.” I said, rubbing my head and taking a bite out of my toast, ignoring the violent buzz of my phone on the counter. Who could possibly want to talk to me at seven o’clock in the morning? “Don’t scare him before he even gets there,” Dad muttered, shaking his head and grabbing his car keys from the kitchen counter. “Come on. Jackson will be waiting.”

 

Since the end of primary, Dad had been picking up Jackson on the way to taking me to school and he’d drop us both off; an agreement we’d made after him and Mum had refused us the sleepovers we’d wanted after I’d hit eleven. This was the best we were going to get. I took my rightful place in the front passenger seat and sighed, looking up at my dad. “Do I have to go to school today?”

“Unless you’re literally bleeding from the eyes, yes.”

“What about the ears?”

“All right, maybe we can compromise with the ears. What’s wrong?” Dad slowly pulled out of our drive and onto the road; he was honestly the most cautious driver I knew and Mum was always moaning about how slowly he drove whenever we went out as a family – Oliver, being the adrenaline junky he was, agreed with her. “Threat Level?”

“Teenage Boy.” He automatically straightened at this, his eyes ballooning and chest puffing up. Dad had never really been comfortable with the mention of boys, but he was completely okay with my ten-year-old brother and his obsession with unhealthily large breasts. “What do you mean? Has someone done something to you? If a boy has done something to you, you need to tell the school. We’ll go home right now and phone them.” Always assuming the worst.

“No, no. A guy hit me with his locker. Accidentally!” I rushed to Michael’s defence at the end, not wanting my dad to hate my new friend before we’d even really become friends. I pushed my blonde hair from my face, showing off the pooling bruise, red and raised at the centre. Flimsy metal doors really could do some damage, apparently. “Where was Jackson when this happened?”

 

My dad had some warped idea in his head that Jackson was obliged to protect me at all times, as the male best friend. “Sorry he interrogated you.”

“Sorry you got hit in the face with a locker,” He responded, prodding the bruise as lightly as he possibly could, sacrificing swapping his books before maths for standing over me, ensuring no one could hit me with their locker. “I wish I’d have been there. How funny was it?” I swatted at his leg from my place on the floor, looking up to see him grinning down at me. The worst part was that he’d have found it hilarious, regardless of the circumstances. I rolled my eyes and shut my locker, making a point of standing on his foot with my entire weight as I got up from the floor. “Little bitch.”

“You love me.”

“You’re my best friend. I _have to love_ you.” I shook my head and pushed him away; he’d had me encased with his hands pressed to the lockers either side of me. “I don’t have to be your best friend, though.”

“Who else would give you a lift to school every morning?”

 

**Michael**

Why did couples have to be so overpowering in the hallway? I’m sure they could cope for seven hours of their day without needing to grope each other against the lockers – against _my_ locker. Apparently, since I’d been gone, they’d given my locker away and now I was stuck trying not to hit a girl in the face every day (accidentally – she wasn’t so irritating I couldn’t control myself) and watching a too muscular to be in High School guy loomed over some girl, pressed right up to my locker. I couldn’t imagine Molly, the poor girl who’d been subjected to the floor locker, would be overly impressed at the show, either.

 

“Excuse me?” I coughed, awkwardly. My friend, Calum, snickered beside me. Not one for maturity, I was sure he had something vulgar on his mind. I just wanted to get to my locker. The brown haired boy in front of me removed his hands from the lockers flanking my own to reveal a little blonde girl, her cheeks flushed a light pink. “ _Molly_?”

“This is Molly? I know _Molly!_ ” Calum’s face lit up as mine fell in confusion. This must have been _Jackson_ ; I’d heard Molly’s friend talking about him. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Molly smiled, moving herself away from my locker to give me access, pulling Jackson off to the side. “How have you been?” She asked, sweetly, Jackson’s arm flung around her shoulder.

“Great, thanks. Finally started that band I was telling you about. You _need_ to meet our drummer,” Calum gushed. Ashton, our band’s drummer, was great but he wasn’t great enough for out and out gushing. “What about you?”

“I’ve been better. Michael’s a bit rough with doors.”

 

 _Michael’s a bit rough with doors?_ I wanted to die. I’d thought she was cute, and I was going to make up for hitting her in the face with my locker and destroying her forehead by taking her out for ice cream; apparently, that wasn’t going to happen. “Aren’t Molly and Jackson too cute?” Calum nudged me as he took his seat on the floor, next to Luke, at the front gates of our school. I rolled my eyes and nodded. I hadn’t even known they’d existed until I’d come back here. Clearly, Calum had some different experiences. “Milling and Melville?” Luke asked. He towered over us both, even sitting down. He wasn’t an overly intimidating person but, when you’re quite tall, someone _even taller_ can make an interesting impression. “Yeah! Never would have pegged those two together.”

“They’re like… Skittles and M&M’s,” Luke said, rubbing his chin. “Kind of similar on the surface, but they absolutely do not belong together at all.”

“When did you become a matchmaker?” Ashton said, wandering up the path and placing himself between Calum and I. Ash didn’t go to the same school as us and, due to a certain… incident, the boys and I were no longer allowed off campus for lunch, so Ashton had to come to us every day now. “He’s been watching too much MTV,” I muttered, shoving half a sandwich in my mouth.

 

**Molly**

“So, he’s kind of attractive,” Jackson nudged me as he placed his food on our lunch table, sitting across from Amber and next to me. I ro9lled my eyes and moved my pasta around the plate with a fork; it had looked a lot more appealing when Mum had been preparing it before school. “Who’s attractive?” Amber piped up; she’d never miss a chance to talk about cute boys, whether or not she had a chance with them. Usually, she had a solid shot. Standing at five feet and seven inches, Amber was quite tall for a fifteen-year-old girl, but her figure accented her height very well, lanky yet still overly feminine. Her hair always fell perfectly (I always wondered how much product she needed to use to get it that way) and she never seemed to have to re-apply her lip-gloss. And, most importantly, her school uniform didn’t make her look like a little girl – it made her look attractive. “That kid who left and came back.”

“Are you sure you’re straight?” Jackson swatted at my arm, tugging on the hem of his jumper. I had absolutely no doubt that he was straight, not that I’d have had an issue with him being gay (maybe Mum and Dad would have let him stay of if he’d been gay). “You really need to stay away from him, Molly.”

“You really need to stop telling me what to do. Relax. He’s just some kid whose locker sits above mine.”

 

Just some kid who kept hitting me with doors. “I am _so_ sorry,” Michael floundered, blocking the doorway in the middle of the school corridor to pull me up to my feet. This time, we’d been going in opposite directions and he’d opened to door just as I’d reached for it, effectively slamming me against the wall and probably forming another array of bruises. At this rate, my dad was going to think Jackson was pushing me around in his free time. “You need to stop hitting me with doors, Michael.”

“I blame you. I’ve never hit anyone with a door before now.” He said, walking alongside me, seeming to have forgotten where he’d been heading in the first place. He should have been going in to opposite direction. I rolled my eyes and rubbed at a developing bruise on my right arm. “I’ve never been hit with a door before now! My brother will die laughing at this.”

“I’d die laughing, too, if I hadn’t watched you fall to the floor so many times within two days of knowing you,” He chuckled, opening a door for me. It was finally the end of the day, so I was headed home by this point. “Are you getting a lift home?”

“No, I walk.”

“Would you like me to walk you home?” I smiled at his courtesy.

“Only if it’s not out of your way. St Andrew’s Road?”

“Yeah, that should be fine. Not too far from where I live.” His grin wavered.

“You don’t know what that is, do you?”

“I’ve not got a clue.”


	3. 3- Threat Level: Mum's Home

Michael  
Upon getting us lost on the way to Molly’s street, with the insistence that I knew where I was going, I decided that I probably should have stopped trying there and then. It wasn’t like I didn’t have friends at school already; I’d known the guys since we’d been little, except Ashton. I didn’t need Molly, and she had a boyfriend anyway (which probably should have put me off of what I did when we did finally get to her door), so it wasn’t as if she’d ever acquire feelings for me somewhere down the road. I needed to get out while I didn’t have feelings for her. I rolled me eyes at my own thoughts and released a defeated sigh; I needed help. “I don’t know where we are.”  
“You live here,” Molly responded, dumbfounded.  
“Yeah, I know, but I’ve got no clue where St Andrew’s actually is.” I’d told her this in the first instance, but had swiftly taken it back to protect my ‘man’ pride. Looking back, I should have just walked up near my house and wandered around until I’d seen some signs – that would have been a lot less conspicuous than getting us lost in the middle of the city, completely embarrassing myself in front of a girl who knew I’d lived here since forever. “You should have just said so,” She smiled, offering me a hand to pull me along the street with. I let her drag me for a few metres, my shoulders slumped down and my head hung in shame. I’d wanted to impress her, but it hadn’t really worked out like that. “I was taking the long way!” I defended, crossing my arms across my chest like a defiant child. Molly simply laughed and shook her head, exasperated, her hair following her head’s every movement.

“Well, now that I know where your house is, I know where to pick you up from.” It had sounded much better before I’d said it out loud; apparently, I was channelling Luke and his less than effective flirting methods. Molly’s little nose scrunched up, creating little creases at the sides of her eyes. It looked odd on her too-pale skin. “What I meant to say was: my friend’s throwing a party tonight. Would you like to come?” I could see the cogs turning in her head, could see her lips forming to word no in my own. I knew I shouldn’t have asked her – her friends didn’t like me and she was only walking with me now in case she was concussed (she wasn’t). “Which friend?”  
“Ash. Ashton Irwin. You don’t know him.”  
“Then why would I go to his party?”   
“Calum’s going,” I blurted, grasping at loose ends. I really wanted her at this party, but why would she have wanted the same thing? At this point, I’d hit her with a locker (twice!) and a full sized door; I wouldn’t want to be my friend, if I were her. “You know Calum.”  
“Can I bring Jackson?” Jackson.

Molly  
At the mention of Jackson, Michael’s face distorted barely noticeably. Maybe it was an invite only party – maybe I was imagining things? “Of course,” Michael said, his jaw a little tense. “Yeah, of course you can bring him,” He repeated, with a smile this time. I smiled back and stood up on my toes to give him a hug. While slightly forward, I felt he deserved it for all the trouble he’d gone through, pretending he knew where my road was. “Thank you for walking me home.”  
“No problem. I’ll come get you at eight. Do you need to be in by a certain time?” I shook my head and smiled, even though I knew for a fact that I needed to be at home before ten on a school night. Mum had stopped checking on me before bed years ago; she wouldn’t even notice I was gone. “I’ll see you at eight.”

Why had I said yes? Because he was cute? Because I wanted to be rebellious? To make him feel better about accidentally hitting my three times? I’d probably never know, but this thought didn’t stop me from practically ripping out my own hair trying to figure it out. What did girls even wear to parties? I groaned, shaking my head at basically every item of clothing that I owned. I could have asked my mum, but that would mean telling her where I was going and why. Dialling Jackson’s number, I’d never been so frustrated in my life. I’d never even been to a party. “Hello?”  
“You’re free tonight, right?”  
“When aren’t I?” I laughed at his honesty and dropped another rejected shirt to the floor. “What do you need?”  
“Will you come to a party with me?”  
“A party? Molly, you don’t go to parties.”  
“That’s why I need you for moral support,” I mumbled. I didn’t want him to feel like I only wanted him there so I wouldn’t be by myself and vulnerable but, in all honesty, that’s exactly why I wanted him there. “Alright, where is it?”  
“Ashton Irwin’s place? I don’t even know who he is. What do girls wear to parties?”  
“I’ll find it. Wear the blue dress with the denim jacket. Converse are fine,” He sighed, as though he didn’t really want to go. He probably didn’t, but I did (sort of – I was at least seventy-five percent certain), so I didn’t really care.

Upon hearing the shy knock at the front door a few hours later, that indicated Michael’s arrival, I prayed that my father was too busy to answer the door. Michael didn’t exactly look like model boyfriend material – his bleached hair (he insisted it was natural but his roots were terrible – maybe he’d tried dyeing it back to blond after something else) stuck up every which way and I’d been told he had an interesting fashion sense; you could only be so creative with a school uniform. Then again, Amber was my only source of information and Amber loved to gossip. “Where are you going?” Mum asked from the kitchen.  
“Just going out with Calum from music. Jackson will be there,” I said, mostly to get rid of any reasons she may have had for panicking. Jackson was basically her favourite person of all time, at this point. And it wasn’t like I was lying to her. Calum would be there, and so would Jackson, and I was going out. “Oh! Is that Calum at the door?”  
“Yeah, Mum,” I lied, feeling guilty, but not guilty enough to make me actually tell the truth. “I’ll see you later!”

Michael stood at my door with a happy little smirk on his face, his hair slightly neater than usual, but still an intentional train wreck. “Hi,” I said, smiling up at him. His black skinny jeans weren’t quite appropriate for the weather, but I guess it was eight o’clock at night and it could only get colder from here. “Calum’s in the car,” He said, smiling as I shut the front door behind me. I was getting into a car with a boy Amber claimed to be a criminal and the boy I used to sit next to in music. I definitely wasn’t going to die. “Neither of you are old enough to drive,” I blurted, stupidly. Calum had an older sister (which I knew already) and, apparently, their friend ‘Ashton’ could drive already. “Mali came,” He said with a nervous laugh, opening the car door for me.

This was definitely the worst idea I’d ever had. There were a lot less people here than I’d imagined, and it ended up as more of a… social gathering of sorts. Little bottles of beer were being handed out in the kitchen (were red cups a myth?), and I had to wonder where Ashton’s parents were. No one here was old enough to drink yet, by the looks of things. I wasn’t that much of a prude – I’d drink a little bit – but it concerned me as to who’d bought the alcohol. “Want one?” Michael asked, popping the lid off of a glass bottle with his teeth. I cringed and shut my eyes, nodding slightly. “Don’t do that again. You’ll wreck your teeth!” I told him, boldly removing the bottle from his fingers, accidentally brushing against his thumb. He flashed me smile before grabbing another bottle and pulling of its lid, again with his teeth. “I’m not kidding!” He simply grinned and ushered me out of the kitchen, which was beginning to fill with half-drunk teenagers I’d never met. 

As the night went on, more and more people showed up, increasing noise and alcohol toxicity levels, and probably the quantity of unwanted conceptions, from what I’d heard on the stairs. So far, I’d yet to bump into Jackson and, while that made me nervous, I also felt like I had some freedom. I wasn’t Jackson and Amber’s toy, today. I was just Molly, and Michael was just Michael, and I was making new friends. “Molly, Ashton. Ashton, Molly,” Michael grinned as if he’d made a discovery worth a Nobel Prize or entitlement from the Queen of England. Ashton was quite tall, taller than Michael, but his blond hair looked a lot more authentic with its loose curls, which had clearly been swept back into what I’m sure he thought was a quiff. “Hi,” I smiled shyly, viewing the craters that were this boy’s dimples. Honestly, they looked more painful than attractive, but they made him look like and excited little boy whenever he smiles. His eyes shone as if he’d never seen a teenage girl before. “He’s always this excited, don’t worry,” Michael whispered in my ear, leaving a trail of goose bumps down my neck his breath was colder than expected. “Come with me.” I’d wanted to stay and talk to Ashton for a little longer, honestly, but I didn’t object and waved lightly to my new acquaintance, hoping he didn’t think I was weird for being a little bit shy.

Leading me into a bedroom upstairs, Michael ran a hand through his own hair. Was this all he wanted? To get me in bed? I scrunched up my face and remained in the door way as he sat down on the small bed, reaching around the side to grab something. “What’s wrong?”  
“I- nothing,” I mumbled, playing with the hem of my dress. Why was I even here? Where was Jackson? My hands became clammy and I’m sure my face had flushed red before Michael pulled a guitar over the side of the bed. “Do you play?” He asked, evoking a sigh of relief; I had assumed the worst, and all for nothing. I nodded my head, slowly making my way towards the bed. I’d been taught how to play many years ago. “I haven’t played for a while.”  
“Give it a go. You can’t forget how to play a guitar.” In truth, it had only been a couple of months. At worst, I’d be mildly rusty. I shook my head and bit my thumbnail, hiding behind my hair. “Then at least sing for me, while I play,” He insisted.  
“I can’t! I don’t sing!”  
“Then you’ll play,” He laughed, trying to force the guitar onto my lap. I shook my head, laughing as a girl stumbled in, more than drunk, with a boy at her heels, falling over herself as she apologised and stumbled out. I wanted to go home.

Michael had refused to play for me, since I’d refused to play for him, but when he walked me home for the second time, he was insistent. “I will eventually make you play for me. We’ll have you singing, yet!” He exclaimed, regally, which seemed to be sarcastic and out of character. “Did you have a good time?” He seemed nervous.  
“I did, thank you. I’ll see you at school?”  
“Yeah, hopefully not on the way to the nurse’s office.”  
“Very funny,” I said, satirically, opening the front door of my house as quietly as I could manage. “Bye, Michael.”

“And what time do you call this?!” My mother hissed, just as I thought I’d gotten away with it. I inwardly cringed and wished I’d just swallowed my pride and told Michael that I had a curfew. Who had a curfew anymore? “Two thirty in the morning, mum,” I dripped, knowing I’d pay for it later. “Or Bob. I think it prefers Bob, myself.”


	4. 4- Threat Level: Amber

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!! I have a really important message for you guys but, firstly, thank you so much for getting this far! It really does mean a lot to me.  
> Secondly, I'm going away for 4 weeks starting on July 25th on a volunteer trip in Asia. I won't have any internet or electricity whatsoever, meaning no updates. I'm going to try to update this story as much as possible before I leave and I promise to make up for it when I'm home :)

Molly  
“I can’t believe you went to his party!” Amber hissed, grabbing me by the arm and forcefully dragging me to my locker. She was absolutely repulsed. I groaned and shut my eyes, rubbing my temples. I didn’t need this right now. “It wasn’t his party. I just went with him,” I could have left that part out, but I felt as though she’d rip my throat out if I said anything remotely out of place. Thankfully, it didn’t look like Michael was at school yet, so he wouldn’t have to sit and listen to this. “I can’t believe you. And inviting Jackson and not me? What’s that all about?”  
“Jackson’s supportive and doesn’t act psycho when I talk to different people.”  
“Yeah? Well he’s mad at you, too. You ditched him to go off with Michael. Of all people you could have chosen to screw!”  
“What the hell, Amber? All he did was show me a guitar. He was going to play for me.”  
“Save it.” If there had been a conveniently open locker near us, she’d have slammed it, but there wasn’t so she chose to storm away instead. Jackson had been fine in the car; was he really mad at me? I needed to find him.

Standing outside my music classroom, I was utterly miserable. I hadn’t managed to catch up with Jackson but, when I had seen him, he’d been with Amber, who glared at me every time I walked past. I sighed and rummaged around in my bag. Had I even put my folder in there, this morning? Between trying to find something to eat, enduring one of Ollie’s mood swings and trying to get my ears to stop ringing from mum’s constant yelling, I’d probably forgotten to bring it with me. I groaned as the teacher opened the door and we all started to file into the classroom, Calum popping up behind me with a grin on his face. “We’re in groups for the project this year,” He said, brightly. I was too tired for his enthusiasm, today. I nodded and smiled as he rambled, excitedly, and waited for the teacher to tell us we could sit down. “But anyway, what I’m trying to as is… will you be my partner?” His rambling wasn’t as irrelevant as I’d thought. 

With Calum as my partner, I was going to absolutely ace this term’s coursework. Not only was he a better guitar player than me, he could play bass and sing, too. I’d worked with him before and, honestly, working with him again would probably turn out to be the best decision of my life. I smiled at his enthusiasm, finally happy about his positivity, and listened to our assignment brief. We were to write and record a song of any genre and present it to the rest of the class during the last couple of lessons of the term. “We’ll cheat, it’s fine,” Calum whispered, his lisp showing through a little. I loved that you could literally see the lisp as well as you could hear it, his little tongue pressing against his teeth – how on Earth was he single? “How do you cheat without being charged with plagiarism?”  
“My band. Luke’s the best.” Hemmings?  
“Mr Hood, do you have something that you’d like to share with the rest of the group?” Calum’s dark skin flushed from his neck to his cheeks, making him look even younger than he already did, with his chubby face and baby fat. He looked about thirteen. Maybe that’s why he was single. “Uhm, no thank you, sir.”

Song writing was a lot harder than I’d expected. “Calum, we haven’t gotten anything done,” I said, plugging my headphones into the keyboard’s audio jack and pressing a few keys, despite the fact that I didn’t know how to play piano (except for a chord-less version of twinkle twinkle little star). “I’m working on it. Aren’t you meant to be good at English? Write a poem.”  
“I’m terrible at poetry. You’re the aspiring musician. Write a song.”  
“I need the others.”  
“The others aren’t here,” I pointed out, scanning the room. Come to think of it, I didn’t really know many of the people in this room. It was only a small group, totalling about fifteen people at most, and I knew the names of roughly six of them. I needed to get out more. “Yes, I see that.” We were both tired and we were both frustrated. “This isn’t meant to be this hard,”  
“You think I don’t know that?” I groaned, hitting my head on the keys of the electronic keyboard, blasting feedback into my ears. “Should we just give up?” Calum nodded, drumming his fingers over the acoustic guitar that laid over his lap. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to just go back to bed, which I could definitely relate to. “Do you want to sit with us at lunch? We can talk to the guys and you can make Michael feel guilty about all your bruises,” He chuckled as he spoke, gesturing to my forehead and my arms. My upper left arm was bruises from being slammed into a wall by the door Michael had hit me and the angry red and purple bruise from the locker door hadn’t even began to fade, yet. “Very funny. But, yes please. I had a fight with Amber.”  
“It’s alright, Molly. Sit with us! We’re way cooler than Amber and Jackson are. Have you met Ashton yet?” I nodded and smiled. Maybe today wouldn’t be totally insufferable, after all.

After music, I didn’t even bother trying to look for Amber and Jackson. Calum and I stopped by my locker (funnily enough, Michael was nowhere to be seen) to get my lunch and we headed straight towards the front gates of the school. “Are we leaving? We didn’t get cards on the way out.” Calum shook his head as his cheeks heated and reddened. He seemed to be a lot shyer than he usually let on, which was rather cute, in all honesty. It was a refreshing break from Amber’s noisy arrogance. “There was an incident. We’re not allowed out anymore. We’re going to go sit at the gate.” I nodded as we approached three boys sitting in a loosely formed ‘circle’. I spotted Ashton’s brushed out curls, immediately. He didn’t even go here. I chose not to mention it and carried on walking. “Luke, this is Molly.” Calum said, sitting down and pulling me with him. Luke Hemmings looked up at us through his fringe, stabbing a plastic fork into what looked like pasta – it didn’t look very appetising at all. “I know who Molly is, you tit.”  
“Don’t call me a tit!” Calum wailed, reaching over the circle to swat his friend across the side of the head. Ashton flashed his dimples and flicked non-existent hair from his eyes. Maybe it was a habit. “Hi,” Michael said, smiling and leaning a little closer to me and away from Luke and Calum’s scuffle, leaving Ashton to try splitting them up. “Where’s your boyfriend?” I scrunched up my face. What?  
“I don’t have a boyfriend, Michael.” His eyes widened and his lips parted.  
“Jackson?”  
“Just a friend.” His shoulders slumped and he let out a long breath. What was this kid’s deal? I crossed my legs and pulled my little blue lunch box from my satchel bag. I was an overly fussy eater, so my lunch usually consisted of crackers and fruit. I wasn’t obsessed with being thin or anything; trust me, I’d make up for it with much more substantial food when I got home. “Good to know. Either way, where is he?”  
“I had a fight with Amber. He’s stayed with her.” I muttered, aggressively assaulting an innocent chunk of pineapple with my fork. I didn’t want to talk about Amber and her possessiveness; I wanted to talk about the music project that Calum and I were never going to finish. “We’re better than them anyway,”  
“I know. Calum already said.”  
“Why were you even with Calum anyway?” Calum perked up at the mention of his name, removing himself from Luke’s grasp and placing himself back between myself and Ashton, tucking his legs underneath himself like I had. “He’s my partner in music.”  
“You poor girl.” Calum reached over me to lash out at his friend but only ended up stumbling into my lap, his belly across my thighs and his arms and legs flailing. I laughed and pushed him onto the gravel. Why hadn’t we done this months ago?

Upon deciding to meet up at Luke’s house on Saturday to discuss Calum and I’s music project, Ashton left to get back to his school and we all split off to get to our classes, mine and Michael’s being English. He’d given me a pep talk about how I didn’t really need Amber and Jackson outside of the classroom, to prepare me for having to walk past her on my way to the back of the room, and I honestly believed him. Spending the day with Calum and his friends had been the best idea – it was the least stressful lunch time I’d had in my entire educational career – despite the fact that Calum was the only one I properly knew, from working with him in music so many times. “Don’t even look at her,” Michael whispered, breathing on my neck. He was closer than he really needed to be, but I didn’t mind. I nodded and forced a smile. I didn’t want to lose Amber, and I definitely didn’t want to lose Jackson and absolutely not over something as ridiculous as going to a party. The teacher opened the door and we all started to file into the room, Michael right on my heels. Him and his friends and let me forget about Amber for a while, even if they were the reason we’d been fighting in the first instance. It was nice. Half way to my desk, my foot hit something and I stumbled, plummeting to the floor, landing with one leg sprawled and the other with a collision to the knee. My hands connected with the floor in attempt to save me, but I hit down with a hard thud, dropping my chin to my chest and groaning before sitting and tucking my knees into myself. Why did this always happen to me? “What the hell?” I heard Michael hiss as he placed a hand under my elbow and pulled me to my feet before ushering me to our desk at the back. My face was burning as the majority of the class hard started laughing at me, including Amber. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists. I wanted to go home. Michael slowly pushed me to my seat and rubbed my arm as he pulled it out for me. “They’re not worth it,” He told me, quietly, sitting himself down.

Michael  
Why were teenage girls such bitches? “Alright class, settle down. Are you alright, Miss Milling?” Molly shook a little it as she nodded her head and I hoped she hadn’t noticed that she’d fallen over Amber’s bag and not her own feet. Hopefully I’d be able to just pass it off as clumsiness, if she asked what had happened. “Alright, good. Let’s get started.” I rolled my eyes and rubbed my hand up and down Molly’s little arms. Had the argument really been that bad? I mean, it had to have been, right? She’d had to sit with my friends and I at lunch (courtesy of Calum), and now her friends were plotting against her. From what I could gather, she didn’t really deserve it at all. It was only my third day of really knowing Molly, but I already felt somewhat protective over her. “Are you okay? Really?”  
“No, I want to go home.”  
“We’ll blow off next period then, yeah?” While not seeming to be the type to skip school, Molly nodded her head and pulled her anthology from her bag.


	5. 5- Threat Level: Weekend

Molly  
For four boys supposedly in an aspiring YouTube band, their song writing skills were pathetic. So far, all Michael had contributed was the fact that Luke had promised him pizza and Calum had done nothing but throw grapes that he was never going to eat. Luke was at least sort of making it look like he was trying, messing around with his guitar, and I was nearly certain that Ashton had fallen asleep in a beanbag chair, but his offensive 2007 Myspace era hair was in the way of his face. In their defence, I hadn’t actually gotten anything done, either, except pace and pretend that the boys were doing something productive. The circle that they were sitting in was similar to the cult circle they sported at lunch; Ashton and Calum on one side, Michael and Luke on the other in some sort of wannabe round object that didn’t understand math in any sense of the word, with myself loitering on the outskirts. I felt kind of bad, intruding on their ‘guy time’ or whatever, but I came to the conclusion that Calum was their friend and that they were obliged to help him, even if that meant sitting in the basement all day with no productivity. 

“It’s been three hours,” Calum groaned, stretching his legs out in front of him and throwing a grape at the wall, only for it to bounce back and hit Michael on the back of the head, evoking a chorus of snickers. “It’s your song,” Luke said, rolling his eyes. “You’re meant to do it yourselves.”  
“Yeah, but we suck, don’t we Molly?” I eagerly nodded my head and sat on the edge of his beanbag chair. Honestly, I kind of wanted Luke’s beanbag chairs… and his swimming pool… and his entire house. It was justifiably enviable! “Yeah,” Michael added, “you kind of do.”  
“You weren’t supposed to agree; you were meant to pity us and help.” Calum grumbled, scrunching up his face and scuffing his shoe across the basement floor. At this rate, we wouldn’t even have a fraction of a song to present at the end of term. Michael rolled his eyes as Luke played around with some chords, Ashton listening intently. “I’m sure, if everyone else in your class can do it, so can you two.”  
“My brain isn’t working due to the amount of times you’ve hit me.”  
“I said I was sorry!”  
“Tell that to the angry bruise on my face,” I joked, gesturing to the purple bruise on my forehead. I also had quite a large yellowing bruise on my arm where he’d hit me with that full-sized door. I knew it made him feel guilty, but I was only joking. “Oh, trust you to bring that up.”  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“Guys!” Ashton yelled, from his place next to Luke. “Can you just shut up!” And that’s when the lights went out. 

Michael  
These weren’t exactly the circumstances under which I wanted to hear Molly scream for the first time. I felt short nails dig into my arm and I tried to figure out whether it was Molly or Ashton (I later found it to be Ashton – Molly had clung to Calum) while trying to pry them off of me. “Are you all okay?” Luke said, his voice raised. I nodded before realising he couldn’t actually see me and joined the chorus of ‘yes’s. “I’m going upstairs to see what’s happened.” I heard him trip and snickered as Ashton swatted my arm. While I loved him and hoped he hadn’t been hurt, the idea of him falling over was still kind of hilarious. I heard Luke hitting the wall, trying to find the light-switch, using his phone for a torch, only to find that it wasn’t working. “I bet the bulb’s blown,” He groaned, tripping on the bottom step.   
“Ash, you’re going to have to let go of me.” I said, pulling at his fingers and trying to get to the other side of the ‘circle’, which Luke had ruined by going exploring. You’d never have been able to guess that he was actually older than all of us. “Molly, are you okay?” I asked, recalling her previous screaming fit. I heard shuffling and then Calum muttering ‘ow’ under his breath in distress. I’d have probably laughed at him if Ashton’s fingernails weren’t so close to drawing blood from my arm. “I’m okay,” Her response was muffled, but it was a response and that was okay with me. Luke came rushing down the stairs, moments later, stumbling at the bottom and groaning. “Guys, the sky is literally falling down.” Little pieces of stone and dust fell from the ceiling. “It’s still kind of light upstairs. Come on.”

We decided that we couldn’t send Molly up first or last, so Luke started, Calum followed, Molly clung to Calum, Ashton clung to Molly and I prayed that they didn’t all fall on me. Liz was waiting at the top with the phone in her hand. “I’ve called all of your parents. You’ll all be stay- who’s this? Luke?” Molly’s face flushed when she realised she was being asked about, and I moved to stand beside her, feeling kind of responsible for her. So far, she hadn’t really seemed like the type to shy away from new people. “This is Molly. We’re helping her and Calum with their music project.”  
“Oh that’s lovely. Would you like me to ring your mum?” Molly nodded and smiled, relieved, reeling off a combination of numbers from the top of her head. Liz was incredibly relaxed for allowing a teenage girl to have a sleepover with six teenage boys, if you included Luke’s older brothers. Saying that, she didn’t really have a choice; the monsoon out there was absolutely brutal.

Since we had no power and the sun was lost behind endless rain clouds and thunder, Luke’s living room had dimmed to grey by five o’clock, and the storm didn’t seem to be settling at all. “I’d make you all some dinner but we’ve got no electricity. Half of the food will spoil by the morning, so do any of you want sandwiches? Any fruit?” Luke eagerly nodded and grinned. “Not you. You ate earlier; I saw you. Do any of you want anything to eat?”  
“Can I have a ham sandwich… wait do you have those pizza chips you always get?” Liz smiled and nodded, absolutely making my day. If I was going to have to spend the night with these losers, at least I could do it in style. Ashton shook his head, declining the food, but I knew he’d try to share mine later so I made a mental note to avoid him until I’d finished eating. “Calum? Molly?”  
“What kind of ice cream do you have?”  
“Chocolate? Strawberry?” Calum grinned and headed for the kitchen.  
“Perfect.”   
“Molly? Anything?”  
“Can I have some fruit, please?” Liz nodded and smiled. Molly was possibly the easiest to feed person in this house, right now. Toss her an orange and she was set. 

By eleven o’clock, Liz had supplied us with wind up torches from a school camping trip we’d been on, enough packet chips to last a life time, an unlimited supply of water and a sea of blankets and pillows. She’d even allowed Molly to sleep down here with us, upon learning that she was absolutely terrified of the dark. My mum would have flipped shit at us if we’d been at my house and asked if it were alright to keep Molly with us. “This camping shit would be great… if we had a tent,” Luke smirked, wandering into the room with a dining chair and some clothes-line pegs. If they still had the tent from our year five camping trip, we could have used that, but we probably would have just gotten tangled up in all of the different pieces, so a blanket fort would have to do. Molly perked up at the thought of this, sitting up straight from her slouched position against Calum (much to his disgust). What was their deal? I knew she was comfortable with him, but could they be any less subtle? “First, we need to get changed. If you think I’m building a pillow fort in skinny jeans, you are sorely mistaken my friend.” Luke announced.   
“Molly needs sorting out, first.”  
“I’ll sort her out,” Calum said, causing us all to groan and Molly to laugh. Why was he like this? He was meant to be sweet and innocent, but no. At least we had Ashton to play the baby, despite Luke being the youngest and him being the oldest. I took off my jumper and threw it to her before Calum could give her his shirt and hoped Luke had some sweats that she could roll up. “I’ll go find some joggers or something,” Normally when we stayed over, we’d all just sleep in boxers. That didn’t really seem appropriate with Molly sitting right there, so Luke ran up the stairs and returning moments later with several pairs of sweats. “These are Jack’s. Don’t wreck them.” He said, sternly, tossing me a blue pair of pyjama pants and a black pair to Calum. Ashton got the pleasure of wearing Ben’s grey sweats, while Luke got his own and Molly got some shorts with a drawstring, which she pulled up under her skirt, artfully removing her shirt from underneath my jumper while the rest of us changed in the kitchen. 

“First, we need to make the floor squishy,” Molly announced, trying to stand tall, but only making herself look like a defiant toddler. In all honesty, it was actually kind of cute. Luke held a pillow above his head and whisper yelled, “On it!” before hitting Ashton across the back of the head with it, multiple times, with a grin on his face. He did eventually get to work, playing Tetris with pillows on the floor to Molly’s request. Ashton was on the floor, lounging on the pillows as soon as they were laid down, so I kicked his side and watched him keel over. “You’re not even helping. Go get another chair.”  
“I don’t trust him in my kitchen. I’ll get it.” I wouldn’t trust him in my kitchen, either. When Luke came back with an extra chair, we flanked the pillows and began the blanket portion of pillow fort building. “Can we use Luke as like a centre post to keep the blankets up?” I asked, watching the sheet sink in the middle.  
“No! I need sleep too!”  
“Sleep standing up!” I yelled, as quietly as one could possibly yell, as Molly got herself all tangled up in a bed sheet and tripped, letting (big shock) Calum catch her before she hit the floor, erupting into fits of giggles. He may have seen her first, but I still needed to make up for hitting her so many times and I fully intended on taking her out for ice cream. If Calum got too close, that was never going to happen.

We eventually decided to use a broom as a centre post, rather than Luke, and the fort looked pretty well put together. Calum and Molly had set up camp at opposite sides of the fort, which put a smile on my face, and Ashton had decided to curl himself around the broom we’d placed in the middle. “We need to stock up on food,” Luke announced, pulling Calum up from the floor and marching him into the kitchen, leaving Molly and I to quietly trail behind them. I felt bad for her; she looked kind of terrified all of the time. “I’m sorry you got stuck with us,” I whispered, once we’d gotten into the kitchen and Calum and Luke had busied themselves with looking for biscuits and cakes. Molly smiled and took a seat on the last remaining dining chair. For such a large house, who’d have thought they’d have a swimming pool but not a separate dining room? “That’s okay. I’ve had a good time. Calum’s been trying to make me feel at home,” Everything was always about Calum. I plastered on a smile to mask my irritation and nodded, joining Calum and Luke in their sugar hunt. By the time we got back into the living room, the blankets had collapsed and Ashton was nowhere to be seen. “Help! Guys, I’m stuck!”


End file.
